I can hardly believe September has already come and gone. What a crazy month it has been.
I experienced just about every emotion under the sun in the last 30 days, but in nicely balanced proportions…like a graveyard soda but with 300 flavors instead of 8, where no one flavor overpowers the rest and the end result is, surprisingly, something quite tasty.
So I end this crazy month feeling surprisingly calm, of all things, despite the intoxicating highs and the vicious lows that I suspected would have at least left me feeling exhausted.
As I bid adieu to September I look toward October with anticipation, exhilarated by future possibilities and grateful for the experiences I’ve been afforded, both good and bad, that have led me to the beautiful adventure I’m on today.
Now, the highlights (and lowlights) of September 2014…
My month began with a series of highly anticipated reunions in California with friends from my travels all over the world–friends from Berkeley, friends from my time teaching in Thailand, and still others from my travels through South America last year. All of these people convened for one magical week in one of my favorite cities of all-time, San Francisco. I also managed to check a new activity off of my San Francisco bucket list, cycling across the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito. My last few nights in the US were spent in southern California, catching up with my incredible friend Whitney in her new home of Manhattan Beach. My last week in the states was a massive success and a better send-off than I could have asked for. I left feeling incredibly grateful for all the loving, supportive friends in my life.
Then I was off…to Nicaragua! The only problem was, my luggage didn’t get the memo. I tried to keep my cool–so I didn’t have clean clothes, big deal!–until it took an additional four days for my bag to arrive and I developed a nasty case of what I suspect was food poisoning in the meantime. We tried to make the most of it, my new travel partner Mak and I, by making day trips to neighboring areas. Our success was limited due to my travel fatigue + illness, however, and we were beyond excited when my bag finally arrived and we could ditch big, bad Managua once and for all.
Isla de Ometepe came next, and the beautiful volcanic island on Lake Nicaragua gave us much-needed respite from the stress of Managua. We hiked, we biked, we swam, we ate amazing pizza (but if a restaurant in Nicaragua offers you “proscuitto,” just know the reality will probably be sandwich meat) and enjoyed a relaxing couple of days.
San Juan del Sur was our next stop, the last place we’d be visiting before crossing the border into Costa Rica. San Juan is known for a number of things: surfing, beautiful beaches, and parties. We landed at Hostal Pacha Mama ready to take on all three. Pacha Mama, in conjunction with a hostel called Naked Tiger, puts on a weekly event appropriately called Sunday Funday, which is an all-day “pool crawl” involving copious amounts of booze and electronic music. The weekend came and went, and we Sunday Funday-ed with much success. The rest of the week, on the other hand, would turn out to be a continuation of the worst streak of bad luck I’ve ever had on my travels. A more detailed post will follow, but to sum up, I fell even more ill than the previous week, many of my things were ruined and others stolen all in the course of about three days. Following my luggage fiasco and first-round illness in Managua, I’d had more than enough of Nicaragua; the moment I felt well enough to travel again I was on a bus to Costa Rica vowing to never look back. **For the record, I don’t actually harbor any negative feelings toward Nicaragua; I know that sometimes these things just happen. I loved my time in Isla de Ometepe and SJDS in spite of everything. Although, due to events that I will explain further in a later post, I cannot recommend Hostel Pacha Mama.**
I now find myself in Costa Rica, land of pura vida. I heard so much about pura vida before ever setting food in this gorgeous country, (and if you recall, I’m a recently appointed brand ambassador for Pura Vida Bracelets, a company that employs Costa Ricans in the coastal city of Dominical) but I underestimated just how essential this little phrase is to the way of life here. Pura vida is a salutation, a way of saying thank you, a synonym for todo bien or perfecto or increíble, a way to wish someone well on their travels. It permeates tico (Costa Rican) culture so completely, it’s hard to go more than a few hours without hearing it. And ticos have been so amazingly friendly and welcoming, it’s clear they aren’t just throwing the phrase around for fun–they truly live and breathe pura vida and want visitors to their country to live and breathe it too.
I reunited with Mak here in Costa Rica (we got separated for a number of days while I was recovering from illness and heartbreak in San Juan) and we’ve been chasing adventure from the beginning. In the lush green mountains of Santa Elena and Monteverde, we ziplined high above cloud forest and went on a tour of one of the nature reserves with the best guide we have ever had, who was not only an expert at spotting and photographing the creatures of the forest, but inspired both of us with his passion and dedication to his field and the conservation of Costa Rica’s forests. We’re now having a relaxing couple of days in La Fortuna at the base of Volcán Arenal before heading to the Caribbean coast.
Until next month… ¡Pura vida!
